“Don’t Worry About the Rich Man”: The Roe Family Singers Music Video

In a recent collaboration, Twin Cities PBS shot a new music video for the local old-timey/bluegrass band The Roe Family Singers’ new single, “Don’t Worry About the Rich Man,” off of their upcoming album, Roll Up the Rug. The video blends performance footage captured in TPT’s Lowertown studios and footage from old Channel 2 KTCA programs.

“The title of the song came from a sermon the Reverend Russell Rathbun gave at House of Mercy church in January or February of 2019,” remembers Quillan Roe, the band’s singer and chief songwriter. “I do that a lot with songwriting: I hear or read something, a quote or an idea, and I hold on to it until it turns into a song somehow.

“After that, within the span of three months, Paul Manafort only got seven-and-a-half years for all the money he stole; Trump was going to go around both the House and Senate to spend $3.9 billion on his Wall; and a bunch of Ivy League schools got busted for accepting bribes to enroll unqualified rich kids over qualified poorer students,” he continues.

“It feels like we live in a time when the rich can do whatever they want, where they are not held to the same standards. They don’t have to follow the same rules, as every one else. It’s frustrating and maddening.

“With the video we wanted to draw a parallel between the poverty of the Great Depression and the poverty of today. Using the footage from the 1980s was interesting because, in going through all of the old footage, it became clear very quickly that these same issues -and other issues, like global warming, for example – have been a growing concern over the last 30 or 40 years, if not longer.”

Roe, who is also a cartoonist, designed storyboards – some used, some not – for the music video:

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